Miracles require being open to God's love, Pope tells Sunday audience

At his Angelus audience on Sunday, July 8, Pope Benedict XVI spoke on the day’s Gospel, in which Jesus reflects that a prophet is never accepted in his own country.

The people of Nazareth could not accept Jesus as the Son of God, the Pope said, because they had known Him since birth and “their human familiarity made it hard for them to go further and open themselves to the divine dimension.” Jesus was “scandalized” by this reaction, the Pontiff continued; the inability of his own people to open their hearts was “something obscure and impenetrable to Him.”

Jesus did not perform many miracles at Nazareth, the Pope continued, because of this failure to believe. The Holy Father explained that Jesus did his miracles not to command belief, but simply out of love, and at Nazareth the people were not ready to receive that love. Pope Benedict said: “Indeed, the miracles of Christ were not a show of power, but signs of God's love, which is realized wherever it finds reciprocity in the faith of man.”

The Pope's midday audience was held, for the first time this summer, at his residence in Castel Gandolfo. The Pope spoke to pilgrims who gathered in the courtyard of his summer residence there.

As usual, the Pope closed his audience by addressing brief remarks to pilgrims in several different languages. Speaking in French, he reminded vacationers of the obligation to attend Sunday Mass. “During the summer do not take a vacation from God,” he said.

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